Solar- and Bicycle-Powered Telecom System Built for Developing World
A nonprofit organization that brings affordable technology to the developing world has invented a solar- and bicycle-powered, Linux-based IP telephony and computing system for areas without electricity or telecommunications services.
Inveneo's system—built with off-the-shelf, low-power hardware—combines an IP telephone, a basic computer with Internet access, a solar panel, a Wi-Fi subscriber unit for communicating with a base station, an antenna, and electronics components.
The computers have a small-scale Linux OS, Web and e-mail access, and basic utilities and are built to be easy to troubleshoot and fix, said Robert Marsh, Inveneo's chief financial officer and vice president of engineering.
A nonprofit organization has invented a simple, low-cost, low-power, easy-to-maintain solar- and bicycle-powered IP telephony and computing system for developing countries without electricity or telecommunications services. The system, thus far deployed in Uganda, uses Wi-Fi networking and a series of transmitters, receivers, and repeaters to wirelessly route traffic up to 100 kilometers from the nearest phone or Internet-access connections to a village without telecommunication services.
Inveneo designed the computer with internal airflow and components that create little heat, so there is no need for fans or ventilation holes. This helps it withstand the dust, humidity, and rugged transportation conditions often found in the tropical climates of many developing countries, noted Inveneo CEO Mark Summer.
The company has included remote-administration and -monitoring software because there often won't be IT professionals in these villages to solve problems.
The system primarily uses solar power, which works during the day and stores energy in a battery for use at night or in cloudy conditions. For use when the battery isn't working, the system also has a stationary-bicycle-based, power-generating component that provides one hour of service for every 15 minutes of pedaling. It can also work with microhydroelectric, wind, diesel, or other energy sources.
Inveneo says it is too small to help fund and deploy widespread implementation of the $1,500 system. It is thus seeking help from nongovernmental organizations, which could pay to install the system in developing countries. Inveneo also hopes to involve technology companies, saying they will benefit by introducing technology to millions of potential consumers.
New Monitor Shows Two Images at the Same Time
The Sharp Corp. has developed a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that represents the first mass-produced commercial monitor that shows two distinct images at the same time, one to users viewing from the left and one to those on the right.
The new monitor could be used in computers, TVs, and electronic billboards, explained Grant Bourhill, Sharp Laboratories of Europe's director of optical imaging and display systems.
The system could be used for two-player gaming that requires each player to have an individual view of a scene, he noted. In addition, Bourhill said, a user could watch a TV broadcast on one side while another accesses an Internet browser on the other.
Also, viewers could watch two different TV shows simultaneously, as long as there are two sets of speakers. In addition, two store clerks could view different data sets on a display screen at the same time, or billboards could show two advertisements at once.
The monitor's software divides two sets of images into multiple strips and routes them to specific locations on the screen. The system then uses parallax-barrier technology, according to Ian Thompson, Sharp Laboratories of Europe's director of business development.
The parallax barrier is created by a second LCD screen—called a switching LCD—that, when active, polarizes into stripes, thereby generating opaque grid lines in front of the regular screen. From different angles, the barrier blocks some parts of the screen. This controls the directions in which light leaves the display and makes different images visible on either side of the monitor.
The dual-image screen is an extension of Sharp's work with 3D monitors. The 3D displays have the parallax barriers spaced closer together so that slightly different images are seen by the same viewer's eyes to create a three-dimensional effect, Bourhill explained.
The trade-off with Sharp's technology is that it offers lower image quality, observed analyst Paul Semenza, vice president of iSuppli, an electronics-market research firm. Image quality and price will affect the monitor's popularity, he noted.
Another drawback is that the monitor's two images overlap for viewers directly in front of the screen. Moreover, users on systems with separate speakers for each image will hear two sets of sounds, a problem that could be solved by using headphones. And the dual-image LCD will cost about twice as much as Sharp's comparably sized traditional displays.
Finally, Semenza said, it's unclear how much demand there will be for the monitors.
So far, Sharp has unveiled prototype displays that measure 26 inches diagonally. The company has begun producing the dual-image monitors in volume.
High-Capacity Flash Could Replace Small Hard Drives
Samsung has developed a flash memory chip that will double storage in portable music players and other mobile devices and perhaps even create enough capacity to replace mini-hard drives in smaller laptops.
The NAND flash chip has 2 Gbytes of storage, so a memory card with 16 chips would have a 32-Gbyte capacity, said Don Barnetson, Samsung Semiconductor's associate director for flash marketing.
Such cards could store 200 years of material from an average US daily newspaper, 8,000 MP3 music files, 20 movies, or 32 hours of high-resolution video, he noted.
Flash is nonvolatile memory, which maintains its contents when turned off, as is the case with hard drives and other magnetic or optical media.
However, flash units are considerably smaller than hard drives. For example, Barnetson said, a four-chip package would measure 24 mm × 22 mm × 2.4 mm. Mini-hard drives are 0.85 to 1.8 inches (about 21.6 to 45.7 mm) in diameter, and laptop drives measure 2.5 inches (63.5 mm).
Flash memory also uses no spinning discs and thus is more energy efficient, making it particularly suitable for small, battery-powered handheld devices, he noted. In addition, Barnetson said, power efficiency would let devices use smaller batteries that would last longer.
NAND flash—widely used in consumer devices such as digital cameras, cellular phones, and portable music players—offers fast write times because it handles data in parallel, and it also has a higher capacity than NOR flash, Barnetson explained.
Moreover, unlike hard drives, flash systems have no moving parts, which reduces noise and vibration and makes them less susceptible to damage from being dropped.
With its other advantages, Samsung claims, the new chip has enough capacity to offer an alternative to the mini-hard drives used in devices such as some portable media players and cell phones. The company says it eventually could replace small laptops' hard drives.
"In many subnotebook or tablet applications," Barnetson said, "60- to 100-Gbyte drives are not needed, and a flash drive with 16 to 32 Gbytes would probably work very nicely." Or, he added, manufacturers could use multiple flash drives to provide more capacity.
Samsung's announcement stakes the company's claim in the competitive flash market, said John Rydning, research manager for hard disk drives at IDC, a market research firm.
However, he stated, it's a stretch to think the flash drives might replace conventional hard drives, which have the higher capacities some applications require, as well as better cost/capacity ratios. "Both memory technologies have a place in the market," Rydning said. "But certainly, flash has made advances."
Samsung plans to begin mass producing its new chips in the second half of 2006.
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